Projects galore

I realized I haven't posted much about Alice and I's school projects lately so thought I would give a quick update in that regard. This is our last week before holiday (we have the next two weeks off) and we have spent a great amount of time finalizing the projects we have planned for term 2.

• Grade 8: 
• Will spend term two focusing on health literacy and creating their own cookbook 
• They will divide into different teams (recipe writing, nutrition, art and design, business, etc) to produce the cookbook as a class and determine how much it will cost to print/how much to sell them for
• Community health fair- a culminating event in July where the learners can showcase/sell their cookbooks. Will also invite local community health organizations to come set up booths, do HIV screenings, and other health related activities. I'm also really excited about the idea of planning a 5k fun run through the township to start the day that will end at the health fair. 
• Grade 9
• Creating their own business! 
• Each class will be a restaurant, and like grade 8s, will break into different committees to create a successful business
• Teams will decide the restaurant's name, menu, architecture, security measures, social responsibility, and business plan. 
• Each of the grade 9 classes will participate in a business competition at the end of the term (Mom, Dad, Jack, MK, and Sarah- you'll be here to see this one!) 
• After school/extras: 
• We've begun a university club after school to help the grade 12 learners better understand the college/bursary application process. It's a bit tricky because Alice and I are still learning this process as well, but they don't have any sort of college counselor or access to the internet/university websites, so we are trying to help them stay on pace to apply on time. The application process is a bit confusing, and we don't want tertiary education to be inaccessible to them because they didn't understand the app process. 
• We're also preparing for a workshop on To Kill a Mockingbird for the grade 12s as it will be on their matric exam.

So we've been staying quite busy and have a lot on our plate, yet a lot to look forward to for next term! 

Otherwise, all is well here. We didn't have school today because it is Human Rights Day. This morning I ran an 8k, or what was supposed to be an 8k, at a stone quarry nearby with some South African friends. However, there was some confusion on the course (which was literally inside the quarry) and everyone who was supposed to run the 8k ended up running a 5k. Oh well. I've been enjoying the running club I joined and love that I have met people who like to race regularly on the weekends! (We're hoping for a better organized 10k this weekend). It's been a great way to meet people and see parts of the city/country that I wouldn't have otherwise (since I can bum rides with them to races)! 

Time to power through the last two school days and get excited for some much anticipated travel next week! 

xx

Fun and frustration

Last weekend was a great one! One of Alice's best friend from high school, Trevor, who is living in Kimberly SA came to visit for the weekend and we made the most of it. Went to another City Lads (the women's soccer team here) game, had a braii with a bunch of the grassroots soccer interns we are friends with/some South Africans, and then went out dancing. We had a slow Sunday morning and spent the rest of the day lounging on the beach with the same group.

Part of our group out Saturday night

After an enjoyable weekend, it was back to school Monday only to be met by a large handful of frustrations. I'll try to hit the highlights:

• Some background info: there was a national labour strike last Wednesday which meant we had no school, teachers were a large part of this strike- many of them are not getting paid so they either don't show up to school or only teach when we want to. 
• I very much understand their frustration, but it is so difficult to see many of the teachers relaxing in the teachers lounge while their students run around all day without an instructor. The other day a teacher forgot her key to her classroom and basically dumped her classes into our library any period we weren't scheduled to teach. She told us she would come back to "babysit" them if we needed it. It was more than frustrating to hear her describe her job as "babysitting". 
• That same day, two of our senior boy prefects began explaining to me their "plan". They explained that they haven't had a history teacher in 3 weeks so they have been doing their best to teach themselves out of their book. When I asked if none of the grade 12s had a history teacher, they responded none of the grade 11s did either. Their plan is to start an after school club to teach the grade 11s some of the material they learned last year. They explained that the grade 11s not only had no teacher, but no books either, and so they could at least help teach them what they learned last year so that when a new teacher came they wouldn't be too far behind. It was moving and heartbreaking at the same time to learn about these boys who not only had to teach themselves history, but were trying to help their younger peers as well. 

Today was the icing on the cake. A few of the teachers/department heads have made it clear they have no trust in their students to handle anything of value. As I have mentioned before, our prefects run the entire library. They check out books, collect fines, oversee laptop use, enforce rules, and as a result in our eyes, have a great amount of trust and responsibility. However, much of the staff does not see the dedication they put into the library on a day to day basis. Yesterday, the staff decided to have an unannounced meeting in our office despite the fact we had promised the grade 12s (mostly of which were our prefects) that we would stay after school to help them with an assignment on the laptops. Long story short, we moved next door, the key to that room went missing, and as of this morning it was immediately blamed on the prefects (despite the fact that Alice and I said it was very much our fault). One administrator proceeded to rip into them for their lack of responsibility, claimed they are only prefects to "show off" but what they do isn't actually important, that yes, they painted/rebuilt the library with the ETAs last year, but anyone could do that (these kids were there for every step of the renovations last year), and that they shouldn't be wasting their time in the library when they should be studying for the matric exam. They came into the office, took off their badges, and many began crying. At this point, Alice and I were unaware of what exactly had happened, but seeing these kids who have given their life to this library over the last year and half and wouldn't take a thing from it so upset hurt us pretty deep. Alice and I spent the next hour chasing down various administrators trying to get the stories straight, defending the prefects, and trying get communication on the same page. We ended up back in our office with a desk full of prefect badges, including Melissa's "Head Prefect" badge that I don't think I've ever seen her not wearing, weekends and school days alike, and just started crying. We felt so helpless in a situation where all we wanted to do was stand for up them, but don't have the power to change the perceptions of the administration. The day ended when the after school program came to unlock the classroom we had been using yesterday (the one that the prefects "stole" the key from), and the key was hanging on the inside of the door. It had gotten locked in the classroom. We were jubilant and angry at the same time. The day was a roller coaster of emotions, but certainly brought us (the prefects, Alice, and I) closer as a group. This week has revealed to us some of the larger systemic issues we will be facing this year  and has got us thinking quickly about how to work productively with a system and cultural mindset that works quite differently than our own.

Here's to getting over the Wednesday hump and hopes for a more glass-half-full Thursday, cheers! 

Power weekend.

The last few days here have been full ones so I am going to try to highlight them in bullets- easier for me to get to the point and easier for you to read.

Friday:

• After school- grade 8 fashion show of sorts. Students and community members packed the school hall to listen to house music (party music of sorts), dance, watch the grade 8 students model a variety of outfits (including school uniforms which we thought was odd), and sing a long to R&B. Sweaty, loud, fun. See the video Alice took of some of the dancing:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCNpJf450jo&feature=youtu.be

The school hall

Saturday:

•  Ran a 5k at a beach near my house- so unorganized compared to races in the US!! No organized start line, a large majority of people who pushed to the front of the ‘start’ ended up being walkers (huh??), poorly marked course- but overall very fun! Finished 3^rd for the women, but didn’t have much running competition… the overweight women walkers category was the most competitive by far. Hopefully found a club I can run with here- will meet them tomorrow for the first time.
• All the prefects came over for lunch/beach- AWESOME! 

Snapping photos from our flat as they arrived

• They ate every bite of lasagna we prepared, hung out, danced in our apartment before the beach.

The gang

• At the beach- they went running into the water in excitement and minutes later came running back screaming- they had all been stung by jelly fish (which we realized later was why everyone was swimming at the beach next to ours). The lifeguards smothered them in vinegar and they were good to go.

Divas beach bound

Running along the beach before anyone realized the jellies (you can see a string of the washed up one on the bottom right frame of the pic- click to enlarge!) 

• Spent the afternoon at the jellyfish-free beach, played games on the shore- felt like we were running a summer camp- but had a blast! Went back to the flat for ice cream and sent them back home.

• Greek food and lots of sleep for us Saturday night.

Sunday:

• Early start to the morning- showered and spent a good bit of time dressing ourselves for church
• Walking out of the apartment, just about everyone we passed (people in the elevator, security guards, and window washers) told us we looked nice and asked if we were going church. A testament to how disheveled we must normally look leaving the flat in athletic clothes, bike helmets, and all our school stuff piled in our backpacks.
• 9am: Taxi to the township to meet Melissa’s family for church (her dad is the pastor). Phoned Melissa's mom and she told us to wait, we would be fetched shortly. By whom, we had not a clue, but we waited nonetheless (and spoke with the many curious people in passing about why two white girls dressed for church were standing lost in the township Sunday am).

The township, or 'location' as they call it

• At last, one of our students who lives across the street from Melissa's family fetched us and walked us to church. Arrived around 10:15am. Were told to wait until the congregation returned from baptisms at the ocean. 

St. Johns Church

• 11:15- people arrive. 11:30 church begins. The next 3 hours were full of beautiful music in both Xhosa and Sotho (as if Xhosa wasn’t hard enough) and bible readings/sermons by various people (in Xhosa). They were so kind to select a gentleman to translate the various readings/sermons into English for the two of us. Small congregation- 30ish people, but you wouldn’t believe how much music could come from so few people.
•  Melissa's mom said in her part of the sermon that she would sew us church uniforms to bring back to the states to show our friends/family… we’re still not sure if she was kidding or not. 
• 2:30- church ends. We were served a plate of holy bread (4 small rolls) and cokes and chatted with her family/friends for some time. We returned to Melissa’s house to continue conversation and then went home around 3:30, exhausted but so happy we went- they were very kind to welcome us in and cater the entire service to us with translations and small explanations.

Melissa's family, Alice, and I. Melissa came straight from a school event, but all the women typically dress in the same outfit Melissa's mom is wearing here. We obviously didn't pack such attire, but were told we did a great job wrapping our heads (which is essential for women of her church)

•  Al and I are used to drinking a whole camelback of water (3 Liters) before school ends at 2:00pm each day- but we didn’t bring much water to church because we didn’t know the bathroom situation= dehydration.

The church kiddos with Alice and I. Their church uniforms are a bit different. 

•  Our neighbor downstairs, Scott, an American who does research for a program called Grassroots soccer texted us that afternoon to tell us he had gone shopping with us in mind and was making us dinner because we’d had such a long weekend- salad, lamb, potatoes, fresh bread, a bottle of pinotage (South African red wine)- SO NICE OF HIM! And such a great way to end the weekend.

Monday: pretty standard, but I must add a quick story. We appreciate the times that we are reminded that we are indeed in Africa, and this afternoon was one of them. Our stove has been pretty finicky and our landlord told us we should be expecting a new one ‘soon’ (Africa time). Today we came home and the apartment smelled super weird. It smelled like burning and we looked to find it was coming from our new stove! A new stove had been installed and they accidentally left it on… or so we thought. What really happened is someone put a bunch of black materials on the surface of our old stove to make it look new, messed up the dials so when the oven knob said “off” it was actually turned on. I’m not sure if the repair folks actually thought we would believe resurfacing the stove would trick us into thinking we got a new one, but it was pretty comical. And now we’re even worse off stuck with a stove we can’t control the heat on so its power is cut off until someone can come truly repair it. A comical end to our day and well wishes for a good start to yours- happy Monday!

Shark shack

Happy leap year!

Updates from last week: we had our first Xhosa lesson on Tuesday night- we have a Xhosa tutor who comes to our flat once a week for ten weeks to teach us as much as possible. It’s been a lot of fun and we’re actually beginning to pick up some of it. We are fortunate that we have our students, coworkers, and apartment security guards to practice with! Alice also labeled almost everything in the house in Xhosa, so that is an easy way to practice as well. We will do a voice recording of sorts once we feel a bit more confident in our skills.

 Last Thursday, our head prefect, Melissa, took Alice and I into the township (known as ‘location’ by the students) for the first time. We started at her family’s home, which she calls a shack (stay tuned for a funny story about “shacks”) because it is made of tin walls. The inside, however, was covered in drywall, was fully furnished, had electricity, a tv, a stove (which appeared nicer than ours!), and she had her own bedroom. Shows you can do a lot with a little! We met her mother, father, and uncle who kindly welcomed us in to chat for a while. Melissa had told her family a lot about us and we had heard a lot about them, so it was great to meet. We had told Melissa a few weeks ago that we wanted to go to church with her one weekend because it was such a big part of her (and many Xhosa’s) culture, and conveniently her dad is the pastor, so we will be attending church this Sunday. Her dad said the congregation is very excited to have us, and it's only a short mass- 10am-2pm (what!?)- we have no idea what we are getting ourselves into. A funny blogpost will ensue I am sure. We then walked around the township and stopped by the home of the woman who cooks the ‘smileys’ on her block. “Smileys” are animal heads that are cooked whole, so their teeth show and it looks like they are smiling at you. I began eating meat before I left to try new foods here, but I can almost guarantee that will not be one of them. We are going back to the location tomorrow with some of our male prefects, and plan to make it a weekly occurrence to stay connected to the community we are teaching in.

On Saturday, Alice, an American friend Scott, and I went to Jeffery’s Bay for the day. Jeffery’s Bay is a beach town about an hour west of us on the Garden Route that is known for its surfing. Billabong Surf Company started in Jeffery’s Bay, and holds a big surf classic there each July. We spent the afternoon lying on the beach, got Mexican food for lunch, and finished the afternoon watching the surfers. 

My one photo of the day, the nice camera didn't get to come on this trip...

Otherwise, teaching has been going well except that we constantly feel frazzled by the number of classes/students we are seeing each week. We are planning a term long project for next term that is keeping us excited/motivated, but more on that later. One quick funny story about our learners. This week we had a lesson about cultural literacy with our Grade 8s. One of the activities included looking at 4 pictures from India and describing what they saw and what questions they had for the people who lived there. One of the photos was of a slum comprised of shacks. As Alice and I were reading through the learner’s responses, we kept seeing phrases like “there are lots of sharks”, “we see many sharks”. We were quite puzzled because none of the pictures included water. We spent a lot of time trying to understand where they thought there were sharks until I finally came across a response that said, “and I wonder, why do they live in dirty sharks?” We couldn’t stop laughing as we realized sharks=shacks.  In our next class we made a point to explain how to spell ‘shack’ and how difference the sentence became if spelled as ‘shark’!

Other quick updates- I have been keeping up with my running here! I found a 5k race at the beach just down the street from our house this upcoming weekend- so I registered for that. I also learned that running club that is sponsoring the race is located very close to my flat, so I have spoken with them about joining and will run with them for the first time next week- yay for running friends! Following the race Saturday, all 13 of our prefects (grade 11 and 12 library assistants) are coming over for lunch and a beach day that afternoon so it will be a full day!

A taste of what my morning runs looks like :)

Some plugs: Here is the link to Alice’s blog (http://alicebator.wordpress.com/)! We have been told our blogs complement each other nicely, so feel free to follow hers as well for a greater sense of life here J

We have two 8^th grade boys that come to the library every day to read comic books or play chess. They love to draw and are constantly asking for resources about how to become a cartoon artist. The other day they came in and asked if there was a way they could put their comics online, so Alice set up a blog for them to post their work. They have plotted out a whole story line and have posted Chapter 1 and their bios to start. If you’re up for following one more blog- check it out (http://pumlaniandisile.blogspot.com/)! It will be fun! 

New perspective

Last week, Principal Dyani and I met with an organization called Friends of Walmer. Essentially, this is a group of local community members who support Walmer High School financially and otherwise. The meeting was fascinating as I learned about the different needs of the school community that I was unaware of (since most of my knowledge to this point is contained to the progress of the library). The biggest issue is the ‘quintile system’. Public schools here are ranked 1-5 based on affluence: 1 being the poorest of communities, and 5 being the most affluent. In previous school years Walmer has been ranked as a Quintile 5 school because of its location right on the border of Walmer Township and the Walmer suburb. See it on the map here (the schools Afrikaans name is Vernon Gamanda). You can see behind the school, the sea of intertwining roads of the township. Literally across the street are long blocks with big beautiful houses. Being ranked as a Quintile 5 school, Walmer was being denied hundreds of thousands of rands of government funding each year. At the end of the 2011 school year, they were re-evaluated and named a Quintile 3 school. This was a huge success, and means a lot more funding and support for the school- but not until April 1. In the meantime, the school is stuck with dilemmas such as how to feed a large population of students that needs it. A feeding program funded by the government will be part of the transition into the Quintile 3 school (as most true Quintile 5 schools do not have much need for a feeding program), but that doesn’t begin until April 1. In the meantime, the school is depending on inconsistent donations from local grocery stores. There are the additional challenges of no dining hall, no gym, no science labs, and no computer labs for the students. Under the “new norms” of the Department of Education, this will all be provided once they are officially acknowledged as a Quintile 3 school, but even still, they have many schools of higher priority to them (the Quintile 1 and 2s) that will get that sort of development first. It puts Walmer in a predicament because they obviously want to renovate their spaces to create better facilities if they can find funding, yet don’t want to pay for a project the district will eventually pay for. It was great to see Walmer High through a different lens. Since Alice and I spend most of our time in the library, we are not often exposed to these other challenges the school faces. It certainly put into perspective how little our library "needs" are compared to the overall needs of the school, and made me feel so fortunate to have the bit of technology that we do! 

Just another night in the apartment...

One wacky weekend

 This weekend can best be described through photographs (I apologize for the poor quality, these were all taken on my phone). It began Friday morning at Walmer:

This is the morning assembly- all 1,600 students congregate at the beginning of each day to sing, pray, and listen to announcements- great way to start the day right? I thought so. So Alice and I did our normal thing Friday during the day- teaching, planning, getting organized. We were excited to leave school that day because we had a dinner party planned with some students we had met from Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU) the weekend prior. We start heading home from school on our bikes (our main mode of transport these days) and Alice is leading the way. 

As we are riding home on a makeshift sidewalk of sorts, Alice leads the way in front of a car pulling out from the Nelson Mandela Municipality Wellness Center (if you haven'tn noticed, everything is named after Mandela here. This whole story is taking place in the Nelson Mandela Bay, actually). Anyways, this car watches her ride in front of the driveway, so I imagine it sees me too right? Nope. Next thing I know the car is pulling out into traffic and I'm right in front of it. Down goes Colleen. I can't tell you exactly what happened next because it was a bit of a blur, but Alice turned around in shock, I got myself and my bike back upright, and the driver got out of the car (which we decided later was lucky because many SA drivers would have just continued on their way). Long story short, my bike and I are totally fine. The only mark I was left with was the baby scratch on my food you can see below. 

I was a bit shaken up, so Alice and I walked our bikes the next two blocks to the grocery store where we were buying food for the dinner party, and it didn't take more than a minute before we were laughing hysterically. Yes, Colleen just got hit by a car. A true South African experience I suppose. (We were also very grateful since it could have been a lot worse!) Rest assured, we are more cautious in driveways now! 

So Alice and I buy all the stuff we need to make fajitas for our 5 NMMU friends that are supposed to come over around 7:30. We get home with enough time to relax and clean up, and around 6:30 we start cooking. Around 7:00 Alice asks, "Have we talked to them at all today?" I realized we hadn't, and we both sent one of the girls, Karen, a text. I wasn't worried because Alice had spoken with Karen yesterday, told her an approximate time, what they could bring, and Karen had said they were excited to come over. Around 7:30 we haven't heard a word from them and no one has buzzed upstairs. 8:00, still no guests. Alice texts a different girl, KG, who responds promptly but says shes out of town (uh oh), and texts to Karen still aren't going going through. Those were the only two phone numbers we had (a mistake we soon realized), and we had exhausted those options, so around 8:30, Alice and I ate. 

Here are our fajitas for two. Sad, I know. We spent most of dinner cracking up about the absurd amount of food we had, the fact that we were stood up by an entire group of "friends" for a dinner party in Africa, and brainstorming who we could invite over the next day for Mexican food. We invited some our grade 12 prefects (who probably think we are pathetic for needing to invite our students over to have friends) but they couldn't make it, so we spent the rest of the weekend making innovative meals with our leftovers. Breakfast was huevos rancheros: 

Following breakfast, Alice and I were invited to go with a Grassroots Soccer employee who is from the states, but lives in our building, to a professional women's soccer game. Take this moment to rethink "professional". The following is a photo from the game: 

We were in a small township about 45 minutes from where we stay. There were bleachers to sit in, but no scoreboard, food stands, or most importantly, public restrooms like you would find at most amateur games, let alone professional ones in the states. But we had a great time watching the game, drinking cokes (made with real sugar here) and hanging out until we realized that we were not going to make it the whole game without a restroom. A boy who was monitoring which cars were coming in and out, directed us to the locker room for a restroom. That was a problem since it was half time and both teams were in there. So we decided to wait until the teams were exiting and we would run in just after they left. We did just that, and made our way to restrooms in the now abandoned locker room. We were moving quickly, but suddenly there was a fair amount of noise in the locker room. Alice exited her stall moments before I did, just in time for me to hear, "Uhmm Coll, this just turned into a men's locker room". Low and behold, the men's team that was playing in the next match had all just arrived in the locker room, ready to change into their uniforms for warm ups. We are standing there like deer in headlights and they are cracking up. Not only are two girls standing in their locker room, but two white Americans (we were two of five total white people at the stadium). They started cracking up and tried to give us high fives and shake our hands as we ran out as quickly as possible!

We made it back to the stands laughing hysterically. We were enjoying the second half of the game when along came one more piece of entertainment. A handful of township kids (6-8 years old, but very small for their age) came and sat a couple rows in front of us. They would turn and look at us and inch a bit closer. They did this 4 or 5 times until finally they were sitting right next to us. (An important side note: Alice and I have found that many South African women have straight, blonde hair. Most days, I wear my hair curly, and because of the humidity, it gets pretty wild). So at one point, I turn to talk to Alice and the girl next to me quickly touches the back of my hair. When I turned back, I told her she could touch it if she'd like, and the next thing you know I have 8 kids from the township petting my head. Funny at first, and then very quickly felt smothering. I have been asked by a number of black South Africans here if they can touch my hair, I guess they aren't used to seeing white people with curly hair. Thanks Dad, for those genes! The day ended back where it started- in the kitchen. Dinner was delicious, and incredibly easy: 

Fajita mix turned into curry. 

Today (Sunday) proved to be a bit more normal. A morning run, brunch at Blue Water Cafe overlooking the water, and an afternoon reading on the beach. It was an entertaining weekend to say the least, and it is certainly nice to know that even in a quiet beach town, we can have plenty of excitement!  

That's all for now, on to the next week!